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The Four Boxes of Gendered Sexuality: Good Girl/Bad Girl &Tough Guy/Sweet Guy 1 By Betsy Crane & Jesse Crane-Seeber “I have chosen to narrate a history. Closer to myth than argument, it is nonetheless to be distinguished from myth on two levels: first because it is a true story (which myth could, but need not be), and second because my main interest is less a historian’s than a moralist’s; the present is more important to me than the past.” – T. Todorov (1992, p. 4) The question “So Mom, Why is it that even the coolest girls date the jerks?” This question from Jesse at age 13 prompted an initial response from Betsy about the social construction of gender roles and the effect on sexuality and relationships, and a curiosity about the question that continues for us both. Why is it that all too often girls and women choose men who “aren’t good for them?” Is it, at some level, the promise of status or economic security? In Betsy’s generation, it was referred to as the “nice guys finish last” syndrome, as if that was a fact of nature. That was just “the way it is.” But it’s not. There are social and historical explanations for why we do what we do, feel what we feel, and have the attractions we do. As males and females we carry out our lives within the roles created for us by our cultures, for entirely understandable reasons given our social conditioning and the systems we find ourselves in. The ways that we “are” men and women, the ways that these identities are “performed” have come under increasing scrutiny over the past 30 years, being studied by observation, cross-cultural analyses, and through an examination of the development of gender roles through time. It is this latter analysis that Betsy used to explain to 13-year-old Jesse why the relationships he observed in his middle school were so irrational. Why do intelligent, assertive girls overlook sweet, caring guys to date “jerks,” the males whose commitment to traditional masculinity makes them popular with other males, but who treat girls and women poorly. In order to answer Jesse’s question, and to write this piece, we have 1 From Heasley, R. & Crane, B. (Ed.) (2003). Sexual lives: A reader on the theories and realities of human sexualities, New York: McGraw-Hill. gone back 30,000 years into history. We will trace notions of gender from the earliest human societies to the dawn of patriarchy2 in order to understand why women are popular because of how their bodies look, men are valued for their status, power, and aggressiveness, and what all this has to do with sex. The ways that members of our culture are taught to be men or women have been traditionally dominated by the ideas of good girls vs. bad girls, and tough guys or “real men” versus “sweet guys.” We describe this historically constructed grid as the “four boxes of gendered sexuality.” Each of these “boxes” is a trap providing only limited space for people to be themselves. Each carries certain costs as well as benefits. The “cool girls” in Jesse’s school were, we believe, responding at some level to a feeling that they needed to get a tough guy who could protect and support themselves in a world dominated by men. While some might say this has a biological basis, we believe that women’s perceived need for a “protector/dominator” in order to live well and care for their children, is the legacy of the last 7,000 years of patriarchal social structures. The power of the boxes has diminished somewhat over the last century, for instance it is less common today to hear a man say that he won’t “allow” his wife to work. Yet we are still very much affected by concept of what a ‘real man’ or ‘good girl’ is, with very real implications for our personal, romantic, and sexual lives. To understand the force of the boxes, and to provide a complete answer to Jesse’s question, requires an examination of the historical development of our society’s notions of ‘proper gender roles’ that led to the construction of the boxes. Despite the lingering negative effects of stereotypical roles and pressures, it is important to note that change is possible and in fact, things are changing. There are many nice, sweet guys who are acting outside of prescribed male dominant ways of being, and doing very well. And there are girls and women who overcome the “good girl/bad girl” dichotomy to move into more authentic ways of living. Males and females who seek to break out of narrowly prescribed gender roles are finding new ways to be in relationships as real partners, who balance who’s “on top” in terms of power, nurturance, and sexuality. 2 A system of social organization in which power is held by and transferred through males. 2 As we were considering Jesse’s question, an important direction for inquiry came from Betsy’s need to do some research for a lecture on the history of sexuality. She did not want to start, as such lectures often do, with the Victorians and their pronouncements that women had no sex drive and that men were walking out-of-control penises. She wanted to go further back, to see where those ideas came from. Her search brought her back to the very earliest evidence of human religious and communal life. Since then, Jesse, now 22, and Betsy, now 52, have shared ideas and books, and presented the “four boxes” analysis to high school and college classes. We come from different generations and different genders, and so our perspectives vary based on what we’ve seen and felt. We also have different ideological and academic backgrounds, yet we have a remarkable concurrence of ideas about where we think the craziness about sexuality came from and what we can do to get out of it. The way that we “perform” our genders is not “natural!” There is an alternative explanation to those offered by evolutionary biologists (e.g. Buss, 1995) who see dominance-oriented male/female relations as the natural order. Biological essentialists claim that women, being physically smaller and weaker, need powerful men to take care of them so they and their children can survive. Such arguments presume the historical “naturalness” of pair bonding – the “you and me dear, off to conquer the world together” world of marriage and private property. This denies that there were once, and could again be communities where children were supported and protected by matrifocal3, matrilineal4, grandmothers’ clans (e.g. Eisler, 1987; Sjoo & Mor, 1991). If we admit that men and women once shared power and responsibilities, the “naturalness” of man-woman pairs is called into question. If we begin to critically examine the history of gender relations, we can see that what we think of as “normal” is in fact only one of many ways that men and women have interacted over the 30,000 years of human societies. What is natural, after all? The roles and relationships we currently live with are the results of social constructions, related to a long heritage of male supremacy that has perverted the lives of both women and men. Taking a social constructionist approach means that we do 3 Women-oriented and led by women 3 not see gender or sex as inherent, or as “natural,” but rather, we see the ways that we human- beings experience our bodies and our sexualities as profoundly affected by socialization, social systems, and culture. What we currently see as the dominant model of gendered sexuality only makes sense if we take into account the past 7,000 – 10,000 years (depending on the part of the world) of patriarchy. During these relatively recent millennia, by the standards of the long history of human evolution, women's sexuality, spirituality, and independence have been suppressed while men have been socialized into a dominating, aggressive form of sexual and gender performance. We have inherited a poor legacy for gender equality and mutuality. Nevertheless, there is hope. If we can create a new understanding of our past, we can use it to envision a new future. First we must examine the political, religious, and economic reasons for why the system of patriarchy came about, was maintained, and continues to cause beautiful, powerful, intelligent women to date “jerks.” Patriarchy hurts men too, which is why Jesse and young men all over the U.S. risk being called “faggot” when they walk with male friends, hug other men, or are “emotional.” The history: When we shared power There is strong evidence that during “prehistoric times5,” prior to the Neolithic revolution, and in various other cultures in more recent times, women and men shared power and status (Eisler, 1987, 1995; Gimbutas, 1980; Sjoo & Mor, 1991; Stone, 1976; Tannahill, 1992). Women were not dependent on men, or specifically one man, for their economic and physical survival. Yet this does not imply that there was a matriarchy before the patriarchy, or a system of dominance by females before males came into dominance. According to the late archeologist Marija Gimbutas who studied early Europe, “a division of labor between the sexes is indicated, but not a superiority of either” (1980, p. 32); what Riane Eisler (1987, 1995) refers to as “partnership societies”, an experience of “power with” rather than “power 4 Descent traced through the female line. Matrilineal inheritance, practiced from early Egypt through the coming of Christianity in Europe, meant that property passed from mother to daughter, also typical in property transfers among indigenous peoples around the world.

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